Eating Animals, Jonathan Safran Foer. This man is an excellent writer. I am in sympathy with him much of the time. I couldn’t help but find it sad, though, that he didn’t eat his grandmother’s chicken soup. I take a great pleasure in the fact that although I became a vegetarian at the age of 12, I decided to make an exception for my grandmother’s chicken soup in my late 20s, just before she died. I think she died in greater peace because of it! I also think of my favorite hippie-friends in northern California who are slightly nutty organic vegans, but when they went traveling in western Africa, and were offered a chicken head stew by the chief of a tribe, they ate it. There is much to be said about social eating, the community formed by eating, that I think he misses (surprising for a Jewy Jew). I think in focusing on the morality of eating animals, he puts us on par with the animals, which I guess, when it comes down to it, I don’t agree with. I am, it turns out, specieist (who knew?). The “you’re eating shit” part of the book was WAY more compelling an argument for me!